REACH OF WAR; A Volley of Fire From a Fast-Moving Target

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

Published: November 4, 2004

For most American soldiers and marines here, it was hard to tell which was louder: the 10 enemy rockets and mortars that rained down just before dinnertime with ear-splitting detonations that wounded two people and sent others diving to the ground, or what came next.

Less than a minute after the enemy barrage, a battery of Paladin howitzers began ''counterfiring'' a burst of eight shots that required the rare use of a ''red bag'' of propellant. This, according to the men who operate the big guns, is the largest sack of the powder, which can send a 90-pound shell out of the Paladin's 155-millimeter barrel at nearly 700 miles an hour for up to 18 miles.

The shots on Monday were so uncharacteristically loud that a group of marines who had taken cover on a second-floor barracks near where rockets and mortars had landed assumed it was another incoming enemy volley.

In fact, the blasts were being produced by Staff Sgt. Terry Cornwell and the three others in his artillery crew. Most of the time, their shots miss the attackers no matter how quickly and accurately they return fire, because the insurgents who attack this camp each day have a reliable routine.

They fire a quick volley, throw their mortar tubes and rocket launchers into the back of their truck and drive away fast -- fast enough to escape before radar operators at the Ramadi base feed the attackers' coordinates, gleaned from tracking their launches, down to the Paladin crews near the edge of the base.

This day was different. ''They said we got two of them,'' said Sergeant Cornwell, 37, of Tulsa, Okla.

For the soldiers and marines here -- awaiting all-out warfare in the 30-mile corridor between Ramadi and the insurgent stronghold of Falluja -- suicide car bombers, street gunfights and ambushes at traffic checkpoints are only part of the threat. On the base, they dodge mortars, rockets and an unusually talented sniper who has killed three men in the past month from hidden lairs on the western fringe of this city of 400,000.

The Americans fight back with varied success. The enemy mortar and rocket attacks are fewer and much less accurate, the soldiers believe, because of a two-pronged defense: artillery teams that immediately shower attackers with shells, and ground assault teams in armored Humvees that hide until they are radioed the location of insurgent mortarmen nearby.

Even if the mortarmen are not hurt -- which is usually the case -- this is because the insurgents take only the time needed to fire once or twice and make a dash for it before the retaliation. As Sgt. Anselmo De La Cruz, a 25-year-old from the Bronx who oversees one of the Paladins during a 12-hour overnight shift, put it, ''They know what's coming.''

As a result, the insurgents are denied vital minutes in which they could adjust fire and take deadlier aim at the base.

But the sniper, who remains at large, is another matter. Base officials and soldiers said the shooter is highly accurate and might be operating at a range of as many as 800 yards. Sergeant Cornwell said one soldier wounded by the sniper told him later that he believed he had survived only because he had just turned his head to look at something when the shot was fired. That movement, the soldier said, shifted his head out of the way and caused the sniper's bullet to puncture his upper back.

''For all this skill the guy has shooting, he had to have been trained in the military,'' said Specialist Michael Erkan, 20, of Oswego, N.Y. and a member of Sergeant Cornwell's crew.

Hiding in buildings on the outskirts of Ramadi, near the eastern end of the base, the sniper remains a threat for anyone who ventures out of the gate. Teams have tried to take down the sniper, so far to no avail, a base official said.

So far, the roughly 5,500 men and women of the Second Brigade Combat Team have suffered 22 fatalities since they arrived at this base two months ago. In addition to the three sniper victims, Capt. Eric L. Allton, 34, died from mortar fire. All four victims were part of the Second Battalion of the 17th Field Artillery, one of several battalions based here.

One recent morning Sergeant Floyd helped lead a team of soldiers on an ambush mission to take out mortarmen caught firing at the base. Before the mission he admonished the younger soldiers: ''Hostile intent, kill them dead, O.K.? Don't try to detain them. Kill them dead. Any questions?''

The mortarmen still active around Ramadi are very good, said Capt. Andre Takacs, 29, who led the mission. ''You're probably looking at military Darwinism,'' he said. ''The guys that didn't know what they were doing are probably dead by now.''

The mission yielded nothing. Yet for the crew of the Paladin that Sergeant De La Cruz and Sergeant Cornwell each command during separate 12-hour shifts, the counterfiring on Monday added up to ''one of our better days,'' said Specialist Erkan. The most lethal day so far, he said, came a few weeks ago when mortar-bearing insurgents approached to within a few hundred yards of a gate on the other side of the base. The Paladins were ordered to unleash. ''It was real gruesome,'' Specialist Erkan said.

Usually when the Paladin's radio crackles with the call for counterfire, the shots are aborted because commanders at another part of the base decide the fire might hit civilians or American soldiers in the field. The shells have a wide kill zone, the men say -- anything in a 50-yard diameter of where it detonates will be killed instantly.

The enemy mortarmen, the soldiers say, have figured out that the Americans are unlikely to launch retaliatory shots if they set up near civilian buildings.

But this is not always the case, and it was not for the insurgents killed and wounded by the Paladin's Monday afternoon broadside, aimed at insurgents a few blocks away from a school, Sergeant Cornwell said.

''They tried to use the school as cover,'' he said, adding that commanders almost aborted the mission. ''They were hesitant in giving us clearance, but they figured we'd hit the target.''

Photo: Sgt. Anselmo de la Cruz with a Paladin at the American Army base outside Ramadi, where crews must dodge mortars, rockets and a talented sniper who has killed three men in the past month from hidden lairs. (Photo by Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times)

Map of Iraq highlighting Ramadi: G.I.'s at the operating base in Ramadi face a routine of attacks.